India Club invites you to a free presentation and subsequent discussion with Anuj Dhar, the author of “India’s Biggest Cover-Up” and two other best-sellers about Netaji Subhas Bose, the Prime Minister of the Provisional Government of Free India (Arzi Hukumat-e Azad Hind) that was established on October 21st 1943 – based initially in Singapore, and then in Rangoon in Burma. Netaji’s Azad Hind Fauj liberated most of Nagaland and Manipur from British rule in April 1944, and ruled the Andaman & Nicobar Islands for two years (renaming them Swaraj & Shahid). Yet, the precise circumstances of Netaji’s death remain shrouded in mystery, and Anuj Dhar’s “Mission Netaji” has spent the past 15 years investigating this very issue.

Anuj Dhar was a journalist with the Hindusthan Times when he was assigned to investigate reports that raised serious questions about the story of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s alleged death in a plane crash on August 18th 1945.

Netaji spent August 14th and 15th at his war-time home on Mayer Road in Singapore, then flew to Saigon, where he was joined by Gen. Shidei, deputy commander-in-chief of Japan’s Kwantung (southern Manchurian) Army. Shidei was a fluent Mandarin and Russian speaker, and was to have served as Netaji’s interpreter with the Soviet and Chinese forces in Manchuria. They stopped in Taipei (then called Taihoku), and it was reported that their plane crashed on August 18th afternoon – Shidei dying instantly, Netaji Subhas dying at a hospital that night, and only Gen. Habibur Rahman of the INA surviving the plane crash completely unscathed.

Anuj Dhar, while investigating this story, received an email from then-Taipei mayor (now Taiwan President) Ma Ying-jeou, clearly stating that there had been no plane crashes at and or near Taihoku (Taipei) airport between August 14th and October 25th 1945. The Justice Manoj Mukherjee Commission also concluded that Netaji Subhas did not die in an air-crash (as there had been no crash at Taipei) – and submitted its report to the Govt of India in 2005.

Anuj Dhar has since written three best-selling books that suggest that Netaji was in Russia in the late-1940s, and visited Vietnam as late as 1968-71. CIA reports from 1964 also talk about the danger of “Bose re-appearing", and resulting contingency plans that may be necessary! The Government of India has at least 24 sets of files that Dhar would like to be de-classified, so that the public may draw its own conclusions about the life and death of India’s great 20th century patriot, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.